Misadventures in Car Shopping...

You may (or may not) have noticed that I have been a little absent with my blogging.  Nobody's fault but mine.  I have been a little overwhelmed, and have been feeling less than creative.  Blogging is something I enjoy, though, so, I'm coming back.  At least a little.

Over the last few weeks in October, my husband and I decide we would try our hand at downsizing our gas-guzzling car.  Also, we were experiencing intermittent non-starting with my lovely '09 car.  The issue was more that the car maker did not know what was wrong with the car, than just the starting problems.  And, because Tony is a mechanic (Automotive Technician - sorry babe), he was checking out what consumers were saying about this particular issue.  It seemed that this issue was happening to lots of people who were spending big bucks to fix it on guesses from the Dealers.  These guesses were not panning out.

So, we decided to start looking at cars.  One Saturday, we checked out the Chevy Cruze Eco, the Toyota Camry and Corolla, the Nissan Rogue, and the Honda Civic and Accord.  The Thursday after that, we found ourselves at Mazda checking out the Mazda 3.  This is where the trouble began.

Side story - at Toyota, they wanted to check our trade in.  I asked the salesman, "You know how girls won't shave their legs before a first date to make sure that their naked legs are not seen?  That's what we did with my car.  It's not ready for you to see it yet."  He just gave me a weird look.  I don't think we connected.

Back to the story at hand, that Saturday, my girls were troopers!  We were out and about ALL DAY LONG, and into the evening with car shopping.  However, by Thursday, they were done with this. 

After searching the Mazda lot, we came inside and started looking at the showroom.  This could barely be called a showroom.  There were 2 cars, with desks circling them.  While running around, Mia tripped and went headfirst into the door of the Mazda 3 in the showroom.  Thankfully, neither the car nor the head were dented.

The salesman brought a car around for us to test drive.  As we were talking to him, the girls got in the back.  Olivia leaned across the back seat to close Mia's door when Mia SCREAMED!  Olivia had closed the door on her fingers!  Tony and the salesmen BOLTED to the other side of the car and let her free.  She was ok, her hands barely in the door.  So, now, we had two tired kids, one injured and one feeling bad about what she did to her sister, both were crying.

After we left, we had a clear front-runner, the Chevy Cruze.  42 mpg, cute, roomy enough for the family, manual transmission.  We set up a sitter for the following Saturday and went back out to Chevy.

When we got there, they had just sold the only Eco they had on the lot.  Of course, they did.  So, we decide to go look at another cruze.  Tony could test drive and look under the hood.

We went out to the car and the salesman followed with the key.  The hood is up, and Tony is in front of the car, I'm on the passenger side, both are looking under the hood.  The salesman turns on the car, then takes his foot off the clutch.  The brake was not on.  The car lurched.

There is a car on my foot.  There is a CAR on my FOOT!  THERE IS A CAR ON MY FOOT!!!  I yelled.  Then, the car lurched again, and there was no longer a car on my foot.

The salesman came running out to see if Tony was ok.  Tony was hit twice, in his knees, which haven't been doing so well lately.  Again, and thankfully, we are ok, just a little bruised.

We soldiered on.  We took the test drive.  We started working on a deal.   They took our car for a drive, because we were going to trade it in.  They come back to us and offer $10,000 for our car.  Um, no.  It's worth $13,000 on the trade.  To make a long story short, they wanted us to take another 5-year loan, paying more a month than we do on my car currently.  My car is not a compact car, but is an SUV.  My car has a video entertainment system.  My car has satellite radio, a back up camera and foldable third row of seats.  My car stickered at $28,000 when we bought it.  The Cruze?  Stickered at $20,000.  But hey - we should pay MORE a month for the little car, than my car - with the SAME loan term.  Ummm...no.

We did not buy the car.

What did we learn?  When people start getting injured, you still can't get a deal.